Cooking Shows Lie (2007-03-22)
Had some fun cooking lately? Me neither. But I did have disappointment after a dish I cooked didn't turn out the way it did in the hands of a TV chef. I followed his recipe to a T but mine was so badly burned! The dish has an interesting name called Tea Kettle Chicken which calls for chicken thigh meat to be marinated in oyster sauce, mirin, wine and soy, then panfried with a filled kettle sitting over it as you can see in the above photo.
What I saw the chef achieving was a beautiful piece of golden brown
chicken fried to perfection with a very delicious-looking crispy
skin. Mine was black. Good thing my olfactory sense was
fully functional that day or the chicken would not have been
salvageable. I smelled burning meat even before the chicken was
half cooked. I quickly removed the darned kettle and flipped the
chicken to cook the other side. We were still able to eat the
chicken at the end after peeling off the blackened skin. I wasn't
too happy with my dinner though because the best part of the
chicken--crispy skin--was
ruined.
I'm not saying TV chefs lie (yes actually I'm saying TV chefs lie),
but you've gotta know when to trust them and when not to. Next
time I hear catchy dish name such as Tea Kettle Chicken, I should know
better than to believe such a dish would work. BUUUT, if someone
starts making Percolator Shrimps... that's a different story.
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